LET ME BREATHE, page 19
Earlier, Ashley had noticed a pile of tree limbs stacked to the left of the barn. They’d obviously been downed in a recent storm. She crept over to the pile and chose a long, sturdy branch.
Ashley returned to the barn. Standing to the side, out of the line of fire, she hooked the tree limb through the handle of the left door.
Bracing herself for rapid gunfire, she yanked the branch. The door swung open.
She stood still, holding her breath. Nothing happened. Was Jarvis toying with her?
Ashley inched toward the open door. She peeked inside. A trail of blood drops crossed the old plank flooring. The path led behind a stack of cardboard boxes.
Her Glock at the ready, she proceeded with caution. She realized Jarvis might not be tucked behind the boxes. He could have created the trail to trick her.
Before following the drops of blood, she scanned the interior of the barn. Everything else looked the same as when she and Wyatt had searched the space earlier. Unless Jarvis had climbed up into the hay loft—which could prove difficult with a gunshot injury—there didn’t appear to be any other convenient hiding spots.
Ashley’s pulse raced as she eased her way along the bloody trail.
Her Glock poised for action, she swiveled around the bank of cardboard boxes.
The muzzle of Jarvis’s pistol met her.
The man sat on the floor, his back propped against the back wall of the barn. A bright red stain covered his tan pullover shirt, on the left side, just below his heart. The bullet had likely ruptured his lung or pancreas.
“Drop your weapon!” Ashley shouted.
He stared at her. His finger wasn’t yet touching the pistol’s trigger, but they were at a standoff. Ashley would be forced to shoot, but she’d give him one last chance.
“I said, drop it!”
“Okay.”
His response was just above a whisper.
But instead of dropping his pistol, Jarvis shoved the muzzle of the weapon into his mouth.
“No!” Ashley screamed, panic jolting her. “Don’t do it!”
Jarvis closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.
The top of the man’s head exploded, his brains splattering the wall behind him.
Ashley didn’t need to check his pulse to know that he was dead.
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
Shaken by what she’d just witnessed inside Jarvis’s barn, Ashley raced toward the farmhouse. She had to get back to Wyatt. Had to figure out how to stop the bleeding from the gunshot wound to his calf before it was too late.
She wondered how much longer it would take for the ambulance to arrive. Jarvis’s place was located on the northern edge of Sparks County, quite a distance from town. She wished the EMTs would hurry. But until they showed up, she’d do whatever it took to keep Wyatt alive.
Ashley couldn’t allow Kaylee to lose her father. The child had been through enough heartache already. Ashley had only been twelve years old when her mother had succumbed to cancer. She knew what it was like to grow up longing for a parent. She didn’t want Kaylee to be forced to endure the same grief.
If she’d suspected how the chase of Jarvis would actually end, Ashley never would have left Wyatt’s side.
She burst through the front door into the living room. Wyatt looked up from his seat on the floor as she rounded the armchair. He’d stripped off his white shirt, tying it around his leg like a tourniquet. It looked as though he had the bleeding under control.
He scanned Ashley from head to foot, worry clouding his eyes.
“You’re not hit, are you?” he asked.
She knew that he’d heard the rain of gunfire from outside.
“No, I’m fine.”
“Jarvis?”
Ashley shook her head. “He’s gone. He shot himself. His body’s in the barn.”
She knew the image of Jarvis’s final moments would haunt her for years to come.
A look of disappointment crossed Wyatt’s face.
“Now we’ll never know why he did it.”
All the evidence pointed to Jarvis being the toxic waste serial killer. And Wyatt was right. Unless they found a letter or some clue inside Jarvis’s home, they’d likely never find out the man’s motive for the murders. Or what the common denominator had been that attracted him to Hannah, Trina, and Daphne.
Ashley sank down on the floor next to Wyatt. But she regretted the decision almost as soon as her backside hit the hardwood. She’d never seen him without a shirt before. Although she’d have to be blind not to notice his striking features—sandy blond hair, hazel eyes, and square jaw—she’d never realized how handsome he actually was. How desirable.
She felt the heat radiating from Wyatt’s body, positioned so close to hers.
Too close.
Guilt flooded her heart. She scooted backward toward the wall, creating distance between them. She told herself that she was being silly. She hadn’t done anything wrong. It wasn’t like she’d been unfaithful to Daniel. It was perfectly normal for her to find a man with Wyatt’s physique attractive. It didn’t mean anything. The only relationship she wanted with Wyatt was a professional one.
With maybe a hint of friendship. For Kaylee’s sake.
Wyatt winced. He seemed to be gritting his teeth.
She motioned toward his leg.
“What’s your pain level?” she asked, wishing she had some medication to give him.
“It hurts like hell.”
Ashley knew that bacteria from the gunshot could lead to sepsis. And death. The thought of cleaning the wound occurred to her, but she didn’t want to disturb Wyatt’s makeshift tourniquet. She feared the bleeding would start again.
“Maybe you should call Kaylee,” she suggested.
If something went wrong—if Wyatt didn’t survive the injury—she wanted him to have one last conversation with his daughter.
“I already did,” he said. “She doesn’t know that I’ve been shot, and I don’t want her to.”
The fact that he’d reached out to his daughter made Ashley think that the wound might be more serious than Wyatt had led her to believe.
“Do you want me to search through Jarvis’s cabinets for some antibiotics?”
Before he could answer, a banging noise echoed through the room.
“What was that?” Ashley asked, pushing herself up from the floor.
“I think it’s that tree out back slamming into the house. I’ve been hearing it on and off since the gunfight.”
The wind gusts had been strong, but Ashley didn’t think the maple branches hitting the siding should sound quite that loud. Leaving the living room, she padded across the kitchen and then entered the laundry room located at the rear of the house. She could see the trunk of the maple through the glass panes in the back door.
Ashley stood still and listened.
After waiting for a couple of minutes in silence, she figured that they wouldn’t hear the noise again. Not for a while at least. Maybe it had been the tree after all.
As she turned to go, the banging reverberated through the ceiling once again.
Ashley froze.
It wasn’t the maple that they’d heard. The noise had originated from inside the house. From a room upstairs, right over the kitchen.
She jogged back into the living room.
“Where’s your Glock?” she asked Wyatt since he wasn’t wearing his shoulder holster.
“On the floor behind me. Why?”
Ashley didn’t want to jump to conclusions. There could be a simple, benign explanation for the noise. But at the same time, she wanted them to be prepared for the worst.
“That banging is coming from a room above the kitchen. It could be that Jarvis left a window open and the wind is blowing against something. But I’m going to go check it out just to make sure.”
Ashley realized that Jarvis could have an accomplice. The man could be trying to lure them up the stairs. But even though she might be playing right into the accomplice’s hands, her instincts screamed that she should search the second floor—now.
Wyatt locked eyes with her. It seemed as though he was reading her thoughts.
“Whatever’s up there isn’t going anywhere,” he said. “Why don’t you wait for backup?”
She sighed. “If it’s a person making the noise—somebody who was helping Jarvis with the murders—then they might slip out of a window when they hear the police sirens.”
And if she allowed the accomplice to get away, he’d be free to kill again.
She could tell that Wyatt knew she was right.
“Okay, go. But watch your back.”
Ashley nodded. Drawing her Glock, she moved past Wyatt and mounted the staircase. Although she fought to stay quiet, the treads creaked beneath her weight. She wondered whether the accomplice had heard the telltale squeaks, and if he knew she was on her way up.
Gloom filled the hallway at the top of the stairs. The first door was open, straight ahead. As she moved forward, a vanity sink took shape. Stepping into the bathroom, she checked behind the tub’s shower curtain. It was empty.
Returning to the hallway, she crept toward the next room on her right. The door stood ajar. The hinges moaned as she nudged the door the rest of the way open. It was a bedroom, furnished with a pair of twin beds. The whimsical animal-print wallpaper led her to believe that it had once served as a children’s room. She eased inside and checked the closet. An adult male’s winter clothing packed the small space.
As she slipped back out of the bedroom, the loud banging shook the wall directly in front of her.
Startled, Ashley jumped. It was the room above the kitchen. And the door was closed.
Fear wormed its way into her chest as she forced one foot in front of the other, tiptoeing toward the room. Inches from the door, she stopped and listened. The house had fallen silent.
With her Glock in her right hand, the fingers of her left curled around the doorknob. In a quick motion, she shoved the door open.
Ashley sprang into the room, ready to fire. Catching movement out of the corner of her eye, her gaze jerked to the right.
Horror sliced through Ashley’s soul.
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
Rocked to her core, Ashley almost couldn’t believe what she was seeing as she burst into the master bedroom located on the second floor of the farmhouse. Jarvis had worked faster than she’d expected. He’d abducted another victim. And Ashley and Wyatt hadn’t even known someone else had gone missing.
A brunette woman, wearing jeans and a gray sweatshirt, was chained to the wrought iron bed. Jarvis had wrapped duct tape around her mouth, chin, and head several times, almost giving her the appearance of a mummy. Only her nose and eyes peeked through.
In a wise move, the woman had twisted her body around so that her legs stretched above the bed’s headboard. Dents pitted the sheetrock where her socked feet had slammed against the wall.
All this time, the kidnapped woman had obviously been trying to summon help.
Ashley flew to her aid.
“I’m with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation,” she said, her tone soothing. “Everything’s going to be alright now. You’re safe.”
The woman nodded, tears spilling from her eyes.
Ashley scanned the room, searching for something to cut through the duct tape. She wondered where Jarvis had stashed the key to the small padlocks securing the chains around the woman’s wrists. It was probably in the barn—on his body.
She rifled through the drawer of the nightstand next to the bed but didn’t find anything useful. The dresser drawers only held clothing.
Through an open door, Ashley could see an adjacent bathroom. She hurried inside. A medicine cabinet hung on the wall above the sink. She flipped the door open and scoured the contents. A men’s razor rested on one of the shelves. She could pop the blade out, but she might accidentally cut the woman’s face if she tried slicing through the tape around her mouth. Maybe Ashley could find a better option.
A prescription bottle sat tucked behind the can of shaving cream. On the off chance that it could contain antibiotics, which would help Wyatt, she read the label. Fluoxetine. Ashley wasn’t one hundred percent certain, but she thought that the drug was used to battle depression. The prescription had been written to Jarvis less than a month prior.
With nothing that could help in the cabinet, Ashley checked the vanity beneath the sink. She only found cleaning products and a few rolls of toilet paper. She’d have to run downstairs and leave the victim alone for a few minutes.
Ashley rushed back to the bed.
“I’m going down to the kitchen to get a knife to cut through the duct tape,” she told the woman. “It’s wound too tight—and around your head too many times—for me to unravel.”
Plus, Ashley didn’t want to risk ripping the woman’s hair out.
Although a look of fear flashed in the victim’s brown eyes, she nodded in agreement.
“You don’t have to worry about Jarvis,” Ashley said, hoping to calm the woman’s nerves. “He’s gone. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
As Ashley trotted back down the staircase, she heard emergency sirens howling in the distance. It was about time. The response had taken far too long. They were fortunate Wyatt was conscious and alert and not hovering on the brink of death.
She circled around the armchair.
Pain etched Wyatt’s face.
Her heart went out to him. But the fact that he could still feel the effects of the bullet meant that he wasn’t going into shock. For that, she was thankful.
“You’re not going to believe what that noise turned out to be,” she stated.
“The ghost of Christmas past?”
The gunshot wound had evidentially instilled him with a sense of humor. Something he often lacked.
Ashley realized that since she’d been so quiet—because she hadn’t called down to him—he likely thought the banging had been caused by the wind, as he’d first suspected.
“There’s a woman upstairs,” she said.
Wyatt’s eyes widened. “What?”
“Jarvis kidnapped her and chained her to his bed.”
“Is she okay?”
The victim seemed to be fine physically—at least from what Ashley could see. But after what the woman had endured, her psychological state was in question.
“I think so, but I don’t know how to get her unchained. Maybe she can tell me where the key is after I cut the duct tape away from her mouth.”
The wail of the police sirens grew louder.
“Ask the sheriff’s deputies to stay downstairs,” Ashley said. “I want to talk to the woman alone for a few minutes.”
“Right.”
Ashley headed for the kitchen. Potholders stuffed the first drawer she opened. The second contained rolls of aluminum foil and plastic wrap. The third drawer appeared to be a catch-all for miscellaneous items such as bottle openers and chip bag clips. An orange handle protruding from the back of the drawer caught her attention. A pair of utility scissors. For her purpose, they’d prove to be even better than a knife.
The flash of police lights shot through the front windows of the living room as Ashley zipped back up the stairs to the second floor. The woman had switched her body to a more comfortable position, her feet now pointing toward the correct end of the bed.
“Okay, I’m going to do my best to keep from hurting you,” Ashley said, placing the tip of the scissors on the woman’s left cheek.
With a gentle hand, Ashley cut through the duct tape, down past the woman’s chin. She repeated the process on the right side of the victim’s face. Then she peeled the freed center section of tape from the woman’s skin.
“I’m Ashley,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Norma,” the woman replied, her voice shaky. “Norma Winton.”
Ashley eased down onto the side of the bed.
“Norma, do you know where Jarvis kept the keys to the padlocks?”
She shook her head. “No.”
Maybe the sheriff’s deputies would have a bolt cutter that could snip the lock’s shanks.
“That’s okay. We’ll get you out of these chains as soon as we can.”
“I heard gunshots. Is he … dead?”
Ashley knew that Norma was referring to Jarvis. There was no reason to hide the truth. In fact, the knowledge might provide the woman a small amount of comfort.
“Yes, he is.”
Fresh tears sprang to Norma’s eyes.
A jolt of surprise hit Ashley. What was she missing? Was the woman crying out of relief? Or was something else going on here?
“Did you know Edward Jarvis?” Ashley asked, careful to keep her tone neutral.
Norma nodded. “Eddie’s my ex-boyfriend.”
The answer wasn’t what Ashley had expected to hear. Jarvis wasn’t even a known acquaintance of Hannah, Trina, or Daphne. Let alone, a love interest. What had caused the man to switch gears and abduct Norma? A woman that he could easily be linked to.
If Jarvis killed Norma, his name would be at the top of the suspect list. He had to know that.
“Walk me through what happened—how you ended up here.”
“Well, me and Eddie broke up last month,” Norma began. “He hit me one too many times. I couldn’t take it no more. You understand, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
Ashley’s had heard many horror stories of women who never got the chance to walk away from their abusers, leaving their homes in a body bag instead.
“He called me last night. Told me that he’d found a place to get help. He said he was going to therapy for his temper. And that he’d stopped drinking. He wanted to take me to breakfast this morning. Just to talk about things.”
“And you agreed.”
“Yeah. But when I got in his car, he pulled a gun. Then he brought me here and chained me to the bed. He said I couldn’t run away from him. That we were supposed to stay together.” Norma’s voice thinned. She paused for a second. “And get married.”
An uneasy feeling nagged at Ashley. “Did Eddie drug you?”
